I try to change companies to be less about ads and more about acts. Through inspiration. Through strategy. Through coaching. And mainly blood, sweat and tears. Because in these times, brands aren't defined by what they say, but what they do. Not convinced? Let my acts speak for themselves.

Is happiness viral? That is the question Royal Dutch Airline KLM and their agency Boondoggle set about to answer with their unusual social media campaign KLM Surprise. The campaign involves surprising travellers with unique gifts (little acts of kindness) based on their social networking profiles and sharing behaviour.

How it works

When passengers check in at KLM’s Foursquare locations, the KLM Surprise team (two conversation managers) then uses social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebookto find out information about the passenger. Odds are, anyone who uses Foursquare will have a presence on other social networks, providing the team with information about the person and their trip.The KLM Surprise team then uses this information to come up with a personalized gift to surprise the passenger with. They already have surprised travellers with champage, notebooks, a watch, and traditional Dutch foods. One passenger, Willem van Hommel, was going to miss one of his soccer team’s most important matches of the year due to his trip to New York. KLM surprised him with a Lonely Planet guide to New York with all the best soccer bars in the city marked out for him. Another traveller,Tobias Hootsen, was surprised with a package to remind him of home during his long stay abroad.

Conversation management

The team follows up after surprising a passenger by monitoring the conversation generating on social networks by that person and their friends. They also take photos of the people they have surprised and post them to the KLM Facebook page.

Furthermore, KLM is keeping tabs on the conversations generated through social media due to this campaign, and actively feeds conversations via their @KLMsurprise and @KLM twitter accounts and their Facebook page. A pretty impressive piece of conversation management.